White House Hu protest leaves US officials red-faced

AN ARRIVAL ceremony for the White House visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday didn't quite go to plan yesterday after a couple of embarrassing incidents.

The pageantry was interrupted by a protester who appealed to US President George W Bush to stop Mr Hu from "persecuting the Falun Gong".

The woman was shouting from a camera stand directly in front of the two leaders on the White House lawn.

She shouted: "President Bush: Stop him from killing" and "President Bush, stop him from persecuting the Falun Gong."

Stephen Gregory, a spokesman for the Falun Gong-affiliated newspaper The Epoch Times, later identified the protester as Dr Wang Wenyi, a Falun Gong practitioner based in New York. Falun Gong is condemned by the Chinese government as an evil cult. She received a press credential through the newspaper, he said.

"None of us had any idea that Dr Wang was planning this," he said.

Derek Mitchell, a former Asia adviser at the Pentagon and now an analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said: "This is going to play to their (China's) worse fears and suspicions about the United States, into mistrust about American intentions toward China."

Later Mr Bush had to physically restrain Mr Hu from walking down the wrong set of steps by tugging on his jacket. The US leader was embarrassed in a similar way himself on a visit to China last year.

On the more substantive matters, China has resisted the approach favoured by the US and Europe - pursuing sanctions if Iran does not halt uranium enrichment. There appeared to be no movement on that issue.

Mr Hu, aware of the growing US impatience with America's record $202 billion (€163bn) trade deficit with China, offered general promises to address the yawning gap. But his comments were likely to do little to cool calls in Congress for punitive tariffs on Chinese products.